THE BIG FOUR: ADPOPTION AGENCIES

What began as an emergency response to post-war devastation and mixed-race war orphans in the 1950s evolved by the 1970s and 1980s into a state-sanctioned social safety valve for handling single motherhood, poverty, and urban displacement.

1. Harry Holt and the Catalyst of US "Private Bills" (1953–1955) Following the Korean War, thousands of mixed-race children (born to Korean mothers and US/UN soldiers) faced intense ostracization, poverty, and abandonment in South Korea. In 1954, Harry and Bertha Holt, evangelical Christians from Creswell, Oregon, watched a World Vision documentary detailing this crisis and decided they needed to act. However, they ran into a major obstacle: the United States Immigration La

To understand the South Korean adoption system is to view the evolution of a country trying to heal from the trauma of war, navigating intense Cold War politics, and eventually transforming itself from a completely privatized "exporter" of children into a state-regulated system that prioritizes child welfare. The history can be broken down into five distinct eras, mapping out how the country got from pre-Harry Holt to today. 1. Pre-Harry Holt (Joseon Dynasty to 1953): Clan Pr